The Cafe Where the Plates Come From the Kiln Next Door

To stay relevant in a city like New York, sometimes you have to reinvent yourself. Take L’estudio on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the newest place to sit with a morning cup of Prana Chai, a grain-and-seed-scattered salad, or a late-afternoon glass of biodynamic wine.

Aciar makes everything down to the planters in his studio next door.

Photo by Laura Murray

Before it was L’estudio, this corner spot on Hester Street, diagonal from Stanley’s Pharmacy, was Brown, a cafe from the Mexican chef Alejandro Alcocer and stylist-turned-caterer Jess Moriber. Across town at O Cafe, Fernando Aciar, the Argentine chef and ceramicist was looking for a place to sell both his food and his clay. Aciar knew Alcocer through mutual friends: Together with Moriber, they opened L’estudio in late January; Aciar's studio is up and running next door.

Aciar began making ceramics under his brand, Fefo Studio, in 2014. What started as a form of therapy caught the attention of both the food and the art world, and since then he's been busy with commissions for restaurants like Contra, Momofuku Nishi, and the just-opened De Maria.

So what about the food on those beautiful plates? The L'estudio menu is accessible, inviting, and as indulgent as you want it to be. Latin and Mediterranean flavors get familiar with each other in dishes like a large-leaf greens and jicama salad dressed with a miso-tahini sauce and served with a crostini smeared with Greek yogurt and olive-chile tapenade. There’s a potato and plantain soup: a deeply satisfying combination of onions, ginger, butter, plantains, and potatoes, pureed and topped with fresh herbs, chile oil, avocado, pickled shallots, and a bit of sour cream. The coffee comes from Panther, the Miami roaster, and you’ll swear it tastes better in one of Aciar’s mugs.

Of course, everything down to the chia pudding is served in those ceramics, made in the late afternoons once things at the cafe quiet down. You’re going to want to buy everything you eat and drink from, but, for now, Aciar is taking only limited special orders for his wares.

Eventually, the space will be a spot to eat, drink, browse, and shop. “Our hope for L’estudio is to cross boundaries from food into overall lifestyle, a way of living and experiencing our community and environment,” Aciar says. In other words, this Hester Street storefront will continue to reinvent.